


moribund

by Theboys



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anal Sex, Injury Recovery, M/M, Major Character Injury, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 04:52:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8387878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theboys/pseuds/Theboys
Summary: moribund: in a dying state; near death.
Dean runs away from his brother right after Mystery Spot. He's got a claim on his soul and he decides to tackle a hunt he's in no way, shape or form prepared for. He's alone.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hellhoundsprey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellhoundsprey/gifts).



> OKAY. I love my child, hellhoundsprey and basically I wrote this thing caffeinated and slightly insane.  
> It's told in a very strange, non-linear manner, past-then-present and back again, so hopefully this helps when you're inevitably confused. 
> 
> I LOVE YOU DON'T HATE THIS.

He’s sloppy.

That’s what it comes down to in the end. It’s obsidian and his hand falters. His iron is blessed and there’s a steady crackle of lightning overhead, enough, he presumes, for what he needs to do.

He’s never been frightened of big animals, understandably wary, but he doesn’t go out of his way to avoid them, either.

It’s got that awareness he can’t put a finger on, and it comes together too late, catches sight of the slant and he realizes what he’s been after isn’t a shifter at  _ all. _

He’s got a skinwalker prowling around in the abscess of this town, sequestered in the form its demanding for itself.

It’s old too, aged enough to know how to speak and what to say and it of course it does.

_ You can’t find me on any map. This is old magic. _

He bows forward at the waist, grunts with the invasion and almost lops his ear clean off with the tremble.

He can’t remember the signs, struggles to figure out what exactly he’s looking for and how to get to it.

_ What did you come for, little boy? _

It’s then that he loses his sight.

-

If he believed in miracles, he'd say, “lucky that it was the left,” and call it a day. 

As it is, he drops to the floor and remembers afterwards, thanks to a calliope-cocktail of vicodin and perks, several milligrams over anything that should be required to sustain him. 

He bends off-kilter, clips the edge of his bed frame and topples before he's got the chance to reach out his hands. 

He barely avoids knocking his temple against the nightstand, even though Sam moved it a foot to the left after the last incident. 

He ends up in a heap. 

It twists bone opposite of skin but he hasn't been able to cry out in a while and feel pain for even longer than that so he deep breathes until he can find his palm to the edge of wood and stand. 

It's slow, braces all his weight on his right leg but that's jittery like it's been electrocuted and gives out three times before he considers the idea of giving up. 

He's still got arm strength even though it's generally zapped due to the strain of his body, but he can't get his right arm around his torso to brace against the nightstand as well. 

His eyes are shut, have been for the majority of the ordeal and it's because of this that he misses his brother’s descent. 

“They're not gonna kill you sooner just because they feel sorry for you,” Sam says, and Dean doesn't bother slanting his eyes open, just chortles. 

“Loosen your ass and that stick’ll fall right out.”

Sam’s motionless for a second, ever so hesitant and it gives Dean the opportunity to open his eyes and catch a glimpse of his brother’s face.

It’s a careful nothing, bottled-glass and a smooth brow where furrows should be.

“Do you want my arm or do you wanna brace against my shoulder?” Sam is matter-of-fact, big-work hands sunned and brown on the grime of his thighs. He smells like a graveyard.

“I want you to get the fuck out.” Dean’s already said the words and they taste rotten but Sam doesn’t flinch.

“Before or after you get up?” Sam fixes him with that thousand-yard stare and blinks when Dean doesn’t answer.

“Before, After, doesn’t matter to me,” Dean tries, body spasms, holds tighttight together, and digs his fingers down into his right thigh. Mangled.

“Choose,” Sam says, deliberately minimalist and it’s been a long time since Dean thought he might hate his own flesh and blood.

“I. Want. You. To. Fucking. Leave.” Dean grinds the words out, they’re so precise they’re surgical and Sam responds, pulls himself up to record-breaking height and nods.

He doesn’t look back, takes his pace at a one-two step that Dean can feel in his chest. It stutters and then runneth over.

Sam closes the door behind him. He’s considerate like that.

-

It feels like being burnt alive.

He’s never experienced that particular strain of torture but he’s heard about it, been told stories from better men than he.

He blacks out from the pain of it.

It mires him in dark and his last cognizant thought doesn’t contain words at all.

It’s more of a feeling, the recollection of one. It’s thick and viscous and he knows instantly that it has no plans to let him go.

-

He can’t reach his pills.

That happens at around 1500, when he’s been bent crooked on his own floor because he’s not about to waste his time calling Sam for help.

He takes four deep breaths and counts the gunshot-pulse of his limbs, oneTWOthree that sends his left leg into paroxysms of pain.

He rubs at his thigh, digs four fingers in and grinds in a circular motion until nothing but everything hurts and his face is slick.

There’s a low-grade hum and it’s his own, vibrations through his chest as he makes one last effort to stand. He recognizes the feeling.

He’s blackout ready and he sees brown-leather, thick-soled and even those are tilted.

“Nuh-uh,” Voice sounds, disparaging and concerned in equal measures. “You sit right back up. C’mon. Like that,” Sam’s Voice is heady and Dean wants to disobey on principle alone.

“S’m,” he slurs, mouth dulled by agony; his thigh twitches so uncontrollably that it jolts once and knocks into his good leg.

“Fuck,” he begs, Sammy is his No-God, and like all deities he demands penance that Dean’s not equipped to give.

“I need you to hold onto me.”

-

It speaks to him before-during-after and Dean doesn’t yet know that he’ll fall asleep to the nightmare of it for the rest of his life.

_ I see. It’s that you don’t care anymore. That’s why you’ve come to take my flesh _

He’s still breathing at this point; it hasn’t yet come for him and why it doesn’t finish him off is something he asks when he’s awake and bearing down on his second heartbeat, pain-pulse.

_ There is no me  _ **_or_ ** _ them. At this point, Winchester, we’re one and the same _

It’s a violent invasion of his head-space, and even though the night is loud, lightning and thunder giving way to cratered-skies, drowning of rain, he can still listen. Clear as day.

Skinwalker is right. He’s been choosing his fate like he’s got a say in it at all. It’s going to happen whether he fights it or not.

It’s around then that he surrenders, even when he clutches his blade to his chest and whispers prayers that Sammy taught him.

Sam gave him a list of incantations when he came back from that School and it’s around that time that Dean realized his brother was more than capable of taking care of himself.

There’s no question of forgiveness when it doesn’t do anything in the end.

-

Dean comes to in an unfamiliar room.

He’s floating on some kind of ugly haze, which means he’s doped up. He’s higher than half the limit his brother allows and that must mean he started to fight.

He looks down at his thigh and peels jean away from flesh. It’s coagulated and black-blue, thick streaks of blood and there’s no mirror image under his nails which means Sammy must’ve cleaned him up.

He’s in Sam’s surrogate bed.

Sheets folded, three pillows at the head, one under Dean’s left thigh to the knee. He moves the limb experimentally.

Nothing.

He reassesses. He’s worse off than he thought. His mouth tastes like sugar-cane and cotton, tack-sticky and viscous. 

He can’t call out for his brother because he can barely wrap his head around alphabet S-A-M and would be shit at putting it together  _ (i find it quite interesting a noun’s a person, place or thing). _

His brother is clairvoyant and that once was a joke but now it’s history and Sam pushes open the door with a solid swing, thwacks oak against plastered walls.

“J--Je,” Dean tries, but he’s float-drowning in perks and maybe there’s some oxy in this margarita but he can’t think long enough to ask.

“He’s not here,” Sam teases dully, and his eyes roam over Dean like he’s today’s specimen. “Come to mention it,” he says, layer of concern that he can’t seem to eradicate no matter how many times Dean abuses him, “you’re aren’t really, either.”

He wants to roll his eyes, flip Sam off but he’s got no sense of fine motor control and Sam knows it, sits his lanky ass right down on the edge of the bed and picks Dean’s left hand up, mirrors it against his own.

He can move his eyes well enough even if he’s sputtering like a stroke victim, and Sam knots their knuckles together, quiet, like he’s thinking of thought.

Dean’s hand flutters; that’s him trying to pull back, and he can’t stand the sight of grey-pale against the brawn of a brother that was once his minor.

Sam is strong in all regards, built wide and tall like John and he’s kissed sun and dirt and bled his own blood. He came out the better for it but Dean’s wasted away.

He’s sallow and, as if the God That Doesn’t Exist can hear him wail, (no one else can, his lips aren’t meant for word-making) Sam stands.

He shifts his older brother, slips hands under knees below spine and lifts, not a placatory strain on his face because Sam stopped letting him  _ pretend. _

“Suh--sss--” Dean tries, blankets his eyes shut and flails, hits Sam in his chest and bounces back to land on his own stomach.

“Fff-fu--” he tries, eyes are leaking and it’s just Sam. It’s just Sam.

“Hey. Hey, hang on. M’just moving you. You can’t sleep like that.” Sam’s hushed, like there’s anyone else around to see them. He’s not sure where they are.

He can’t turn his head wide enough to see and then they’re leaving the room entirely. 

Upstairs. Small library off to the left of the kitchen. Cluttered. Grimoires and enchantments. Smells like salvation and home. There are four cans of beer scattered in kitty-corners.

Truck-stop ballcaps.

They turn. 

Two rooms, doors shut on each of them and then the third. His own. If he squints he sees phantoms. Dean with Sam, age seven. Sam walks into things. He hasn’t yet learned balance.

Dean with Sam, age twelve. Sam hunkers down on child-sore knees, peeks under the bed, invasive. His teeth are pearls when he grins.

_ Nothing, Bean! _

His brow furrows, hands fisted in the sheets, almost the same shade of yellow-gold they are now.  _ Nothing yet, Bean,  _ he corrects, like Dean’s hung the stars under the shade of night-sky just for him to search out.

Dean with Sam, age twenty-eight. His head lolls back on his brother’s shoulder, carries him like he’s nothing and maybe that’s so.

Most of Dean with Sam.

His brother splays him across the bed, eternal offering.

-

He runs right after Mystery Spot.

Sam’s eyes are vacant and, even months down the line, he still glances at Dean like he’s effervescent, how many ways can you watch your only kin die?

Dean has given him more opportunities than he planned, how sorry he is.

They’re on the search for the Colt but Dean’s trying to find himself and if he explains that to Sam he’ll sound like a chick-flick with no end.

Sam’s watched Dean die for weeksmonths on end and he’s got nothing to show for it except maybe a flawless rendition of Asia and another complex layered atop the blister of old ones.

Dean neatly plucks himself out of the picture.

He’s coming back. It’s not that he wants to leave his brother but Sam stares at him with something too close to guilt even though Dean makes all his own choices.

What’s that? He’s master of his fate and captain of his soul? He laughs at that, parked behind the wheel of some no-name Ford, truck-bed of mud and down-south gravel.

The interior is beige, whether by wear or brand and he floors it, left leg tapping out a beat as his right refuses to release the gas pedal.

He’s going on a hunt. He’s going to save his own life.

-

When he comes to again, Sam hasn’t left.

His mind is more than the mental-sludge he provided it, and Sam is unsmiling when he looks down.

“Is that how you want it from now on?” Dean raises his brows at the sound, Sam’s like plastic.

“I can make you numb. Keep you there, even.” Dean shakes his head, recalls how to make sound. “It won’t change a damn thing,” Sam continues, undeterred.

“M’not numb, you asshole,” he says, drags himself half into a sitting position until Sam has to take hold and pull him the rest of the way up.

Time was when he would have clawed Sam to bits for it but he’s transcended that and Sam releases him as soon as humanly possible.

“You’re not,” Sam concedes, “but you want to be.”

Dean can’t argue, doesn’t have the energy. 

“Either way, they’re coming for this hunk’a flesh,” he quips, smiles bright into the set of Sam’s sun. “I’m just trying to preserve what they got left.”

Dean fingers the gap where fabric used to be. Sam cuts all his jeans for him.

“You think they offer a discount for damaged goods?” Dean’s pushing but God does it rankle him, watches Sam dim so suddenly there’s a weather-warning.

“Not quite half off, huh, Dean?” Sam says, unexpected and hard and Dean hates being caught unawares. 

He opens his mouth; he’s got more where these came from and Sammy can’t stop him but his brother stands and bends, brackets him under that toll of a body and for once, it’s his good leg that jounces up and smacks his brother in the abdomen.

“One less thing for them to take,” Sam breathes, might as well croon it for all the emotion in his tone. Sam is dry-dead and Dean should remember not to shove when he can nudge.

Sam doesn’t wait for him to answer, looks him straight in the dead-sea and presses his knee down right where tibia and fibula should join.

Dean can feel the give of mattress and sheet and he can’t reach his left thigh to dig, scrape skin apart.

Sam leaves a phantom pain, every time.

-

**Coda**

He does not want to romanticize it.

There is a lot of blood.

It’s caked on the earth and in the bits and pieces of marrow that get left behind.

(his brother can’t salvage them).

The skinwalker climbs into his head to rest and subsequently nests, makes a home for itself and its family of lies. They splinter.

Dean dreams in a second voice now.

It pins him to the earth. Great night-water wolf and it’s the biggest monster he’s faced yet.

Maybe it’s just the closest.

_ You’re not mine to take. You have a claim on you _

It’s direct and he takes a second to appreciate that.

It tells Dean to stay away from its town. Its people.

They’ve lived undisturbed for millennia and Dean can spy a hunt with both eyes shut. 

There was wrongness inherent.

It cannot murder him.

But it does take the rest of his life.

Bone crunches like wood and flame.

-

When Sam finds him, he doesn’t let Dean kill himself. 

He used a locator spell and he’s suspiciously pale and covered in old-red but he’s there and he doesn’t tremble even though he can’t have seen anything worse than the way Dean’s mangled on the forest floor.

He’s not far out from Fort Lauderdale, never even made it out of Broward County. 

It’s daylight when Sam comes running up to his body. So young in that moment, young like Dean will never see again.

Frantic.

He drops to both knees, soundless even in agony and Dean’s in shock. This part is fuzzy and probably untrue.

The sky isn’t blue, mostly white and there are no edges to his world. He only knows his brother is here by scent, hands roaming over the spasm of his body.

It’s jerking, up and down and he’s going to pass out soon, thinks logically that he should be dead from blood loss.

Skinwalker promised that he wouldn’t (couldn’t) kill him.

The world coalesces in a dome of sun-pale, the fadeout to a movie about loss. 

“This is gonna hurt.” Sam says it far off, radio waves of completion and Dean opens his mouth to tell him to fuck off-- _ It already does you son of a bitch all it does is hurt look at me look at me look at me--  _ but all that slurs forth is some kind of beast-whine. 

That's his own tongue. 

Earth and sun shift, grind under thick skin and he can feel himself shifting into a position that bends the level of his tolerance.

“S--ss,” he tries, maybe the words drip-wet out of his fallen mouth but Sam is there and he can see the whir of treetops before everything around him continues to shine.

He’s not sure he remembers later but he’s certain Sam’s speaking, never stopped.

_ Don’t you dare forget the sun _

-

Sam doesn’t wake him up the next morning. Inadvertently, he ends up doing so regardless, and Dean recalls his location.

He’s locked in his nightmare of a childhood, stuck-locked in this bedroom of his surrogate father. There are still posters from soccer games tucked high in ceilings.

They’re supposed to make little boys feel cocooned but Dean is as smothered as he ever was.

Sam kept him downstairs, tucked in the bunker and he remembers being cold. He’s got two settings and one of them is the temperature he can always feel burrowed under his flesh.

He tries out his brother’s name first, presses it through locked teeth, “Sam-Sam-Sam,” and breathes out through his nose.

That’s stable, then.

His own name is harder, his mouth won’t form and he’s working on the long-e when he hears a crash from downstairs.

It’s followed by a curse and he swings his leg over the side of his bed before he can think better of it. He’s thrown off balance immediately and topples, whines louder than he likes and he cannot save himself from the crash.

“Fuck. God-fuck it all,” he curses, scrabbles at bedsheets and urine-gleam falls over his shoulders to covering the matching shine of that hair of his.

He waits, quietly dreading Sam’s silent walk upstairs and he’s rewarded with nothing but the dry ache of his own throat and the hum of blood.

He breathes slow until the fright passes and then he leans his head back for the drag upwards.

His right leg quivers with excess strain and he topples back down, twists at the last instant to land on his ass. 

He left knee is hunched at an awkward angle and he wraps both palms around it to bend it back in place. Knee gives way and refuses, sending a shockwave of pain lancing through him so bright that it shoves him right back into that brilliant place.

He doesn’t realize he’s screaming his brother’s name until every syllable dissolutes in his mouth and Sam’s cradling his limp neck in too-warm palms.

“Jesus. Jesus fucking Christ, Dean!” Sam’s murmuring, soft, like he knows Dean can’t withstand the hearing of it.

“You locked it in place, didn’t you?” Sam asks, hushes him when he tries to speak. He grabs at Sam’s sleeves, curls whole fists into the fabric and Sam coos at him, unintelligible warmth sounds that soothe unnecessarily.

“Contracture,” Sam explains, talking for the sake of words and he nods dumbly, even though the only thing keeping him upright is the heat-weight of Sam’s palm on the nape of his neck.

“You won’t roll it if I don’t make you,” Sam continues, one-man-show and he’s massaging that fat knot of tissue that barely serves to exist anymore.

“G’way,” he heaves, tastes like bile in the back of his throat.

“S-suh-stop fuckin’ touchin’ it,” he presses out, ash.

Sam looks at him, pulls his head so close their foreheads touch and he has nowhere to go but Sam.

“Fix it your damn self,” Sam says, makes Dean’s head follow his words so he can’t miss it.

“Meds are in the top right drawer, water on top of the nightstand,” Sam says, already pulling back and his knee bounces,  _ ah-ah  _ sound all nasty in the air.

“When you make it back onto your bed,” Sam continues, “elevate it. Don’t bend it anymore.” Sam stands and he topples sideways, hits the floor so loud his temple reverberates with the noise.

Sam turns, broad back stiff and he’s almost stuffed into a plaid shirt Dean’s almost sure doesn’t belong to him.

“Stop using the sheets, the frame doesn’t move.” Sam dims the light on his exit and he counts twelve steps before rolling onto his side.

There’s a bruise forming on the left hand side of his body and it takes him three hours to get horizontal.

-

Sam takes him to a witch doctor.

Everly Huston lives in South Dakota because they’re on their way to Bobby’s and Dean’s wound has clotted but there’s nothing left in him.

He’s grey-ash and the only reason he’s not dead is because Hell’s got a crop to harvest and he’s in full bloom.

The roof of his car is more coffin than sunshine and he stares unblinkingly as Sam hits every pothole and speedbump on the way to Miss Everly’s cabin.

He can’t feel his own left side and when the car idles he listens for the specter of his murderer, hears the dry-bones sound.

_ Claim on you _

It echoes like he can’t escape and his neck pops back over the edge of the seat when Sam wrenches it open with forgotten care.

It’s unlike him but Dean doesn’t have the heart to tell him he hasn’t seen anything for miles and maybe when you die it’s your eyes that fade first.

What do you need them where(ever) you’re going?

Everly is 5’11 and willowy, blows away with every strong breeze but always finds her way back without fail. Her hair is in one silver braid and it’s twisted into a snake around her neck.

Her hair chokes her, long enough to wrap double and she presses two fingers to it when Sam peels into her life.

_ Sam tells him later and he commits it to memory _

His world shifts as Sam lifts again, both legs bounce against Sam’s thighs and when he gets the chance he’s gotta ask Sam to take his boots off. He’s heavy.

Everly doesn’t speak to him but that’s fine because Sam makes a noise and then presses  Dean’s face into the hollow of his throat.

“There’s no reason anything should be touching him,” she explains, not so much abrasive as obvious, dark gaze flits from Dean’s impotence to Sam’s face.

“You close with him,” she says, touches her snakeskin follicles, “don’t he smell like brimstone? You that close to Hell and you don’t rot with him?”

She says it like she’s confused, steps closer to the two of them so she can read whatever it is she sees on Sam’s body.

“Well then,” Sam says, so firm it makes him shudder with premonition, “we’ll both have to see about dying together.”

Everly is nodding and humming before Sam’s got the words unfurled from his mouth. “No reason to tell me,” she says. “I know what you’re about.”

He’s stuck in the staccato rhythm of his own pulse and he’s slipping, lifeblood seeping out with every careful turn Sam provides him.

He’s still in sun-shade and he can feel them go up three steps and the flame doesn’t dissipate behind his eyes.

He can feel weathered fingers flit over his skin, every inch it seems, and he curls into Sam’s chest. His brother’s heart beats off-kilter and he must say something about it because Sam presses his lips into his hair to muffle what, a laugh?

“Don’t talk, okay? Breathe for me.” Sam repeats it, subtle and monotonous and he wants to ask one of them why he can’t see, why the whites behind his pupils are ever-expanding but they’re not listening.

“He should be long dead,” Everly says, same tone she’s used since the ‘67 destroyed her begonias and wormroot. 

“He’s on the edge of that right now--look--look at his eyes.” Everly’s hands smell like juniper and he flinches, cries out and calls for his brother.

“Sss--Su--” he’s gargling, claret in his lungs, and Sam rocks them both together, this time he does laugh, low and long and Dean shudders for it.

“He can’t see. He doesn’t even know--can he hear?” Sam’s looking down on him now, he can feel it in the cadence of his voice, and he manages to curl a fist in thick-wet fabric, why’s it soaked, Sammy?

“Oh he’s still there,” Everly says, age to brow and he dies for it, right here.

“They’re not letting him go anywhere. Not yet.” 

Sam takes a deep breath. “Just. Can you fix him? Can you do that--his. He’s. We can’t do what we do without. If he’s like this.” It’s the most his brother’s said and he can feel himself slipping, fading back into the no-space.

“Not in the way you want,” she says, and they’re moving again, Sam’s laying him down. The surface is cold, digs his fingers in deep and it’s wood, swirls and whorls of bark under his hand.

“Sss,” he tries and his head is supported by his brother’s hand. The world is greying out, luster from the daylight fading.

“I can stop the bleeding.”

His brother places Dean’s hand on his cheek.

-

Sam doesn’t come up with dinner.

It’s seven pm on the dot, he can hear his metronome announce it and there’s nothing. 

No rattle of pans and the slightly heavier gait he takes when carrying something. It’s enough to make him cry out and he almost does, pushes his fist into his mouth to staunch the noise.

He turns slowly, moves his body in increments the way they showed him a long time ago and gets his good leg on the floor before using both hands to drag  _ it  _ alongside.

He gives it a good look, forces himself to still and remember, and he fingers the gape where the rest of him should be.

The red has died down from fury to gentle rage and it’s stiff and painful enough for his hands to shake when he swallows four Vicodin, dry.

His right foot hits carpeting first and he grabs the bedpost to pull himself standing. He sways in place with the ascent and his cry of disbelief is swallowed by the jarring agony as his left attempts to follow suit.

“J-Jesus. Jesus.  _ Jesus,”  _ he whispers, mantra he can’t believe in.

He takes the turn around his bed inch by inch, sweating by the time he reaches the foot. The door is still across the room.

“Sam! Sam, you motherfucking asshole!” The words are louder than he meant and he waits for his brother’s stride.

Absence.

His grip changes from bedspread to post to wall, digs into wallpaper and it peels off in his palm.

He makes it to the door, hair stuck-rank to his forehead, soaked his shirt through and his vibrating at a pain frequency he didn’t think he could reach.

Is there he remembers the stairs.

-

**Coda 2.0**

He doesn’t regain his sight the next day

Or the next

And after a week they think he’s going to live with

Most of himself gone.

He wants to be honest, here.

Sam’s red-rimmed eyes are the first thing.

It’s a mirror image of two-plus decades ago.

-

There’s a cane waiting next to his bed when he wakes up, and he’s pissed he didn’t shiver into consciousness when Sam dropped it off.

Breakfast is next to that, toast and fruit and what looks like a small stack of pancakes.

He hefts the stick in his hand. Beachwood, resin top. It cost an arm and a leg (fitting) and he’s not seen it since Sam tried to force it on him Before.

It clatters down on the floor with a satisfying thwack and he considers outfitting the head with iron and salt, swinging it through ghosts like a baseball bat.

He stands too quickly and takes it in hand but he tilts to the left and ends up smacking his food right off the nightstand and onto the floor.

He grinds it in with the heel of the cane and delights in the spread of potato-stick.

He could still take a head off.

-

He tries to run away two weeks after the skinwalker mangles him, folds the flap of fabric around his stump of a left leg.

The cane is in Sam’s possession after he threw it and busted open Bobby’s foyer window, and he reluctantly uses the wheelchair Sam scammed for him.

He’s gonna ditch it as soon as he gets to the car. His driving foot still works and he’s gonna go 0 to 90 and go die in peace.

Somewhere his brother can’t follow, won’t find.

He’s sleeping in the living room because there’s no way he can navigate stairs and he’ll be goddamned if Sam tries to carry him one more time.

He’s out of his ‘scripts but that’s okay, he’ll refill them when he’s four towns over.

His only change of clothes is upstairs but he’s been colder than this and the exertion of simply moving keeps him warm anyway.

He gets to the open doorway, spies three steps and cries out, frustrated tears.

“Kill me, then! C’mon! I’m halfway home!”

He nudges the wheels forward tentatively and then he rockets down them, spurred by necessity. 

He loses control.

He flips his forearms above his head to protect it and hits every inch of his right side on the way down, scrapes hipbone and shin raw.

There’s leakage and the wheels are spinning endlessly when both he and it make it to their descent.

He’s crying but he’s alone and he gasps out his air in startled puffs. His neck is at an awkward angle and he’s gonna stain his last good shirt, the last that fits, he’s gonna have to wear his little brother’s.

Sam finds him that way, comes up in one of Bobby’s cars, stocked full of groceries he doesn’t want, god _ damn  _ it.

“You. You--you’re a fucking idiot,” Sam says, words stuttered with the way he’s letting all those tears free-fall, immediately kicks the chair aside and cradles Dean close.

He hasn’t got the energy to fight it. His temple aches and he can feel his bad leg trembling uncontrollably, blanketed in pain.

“Ff-fuck, I thought--ah-ah. I h--had it,” he says, expends himself and Sam’s shaking his head.

The sun is setting.

-

He sees his brother for the first time in three days on a Tuesday.

“You need a shower,” is all Sam says, and he’s so shook at seeing his brother, giant and all-encompassing that he keeps his fool mouth shut.

Sam manhandles him, clinical and cool and he’s startled into brightness when Sam rips shirt and sweatpants down his legs, leaves him exposed.

He resolutely looks up at his brother and not any further south other than his dick.

Sam’s examining his wound like he always does, prods him to turn to the left and the right so he can check inflammation.

There’s a seat in the shower and he’s been navigating this room by himself for a few days now and he nods at Sam’s help.

“If you. If you can drag the seat closer I can slide on,” he says, and Sam pauses, so infinitesimally it almost goes unnoticed, and then does just that.

He keeps a steadying arm on Dean’s elbow as he navigates him into the seat and under the spray, flat polygon of plastic that Sam installed with his own two hands so Dean wouldn’t have to stand the whole time.

Sam’s eyes flit over him carefully, and he reaches up to drag the curtain closed.

“I’ll be out here,” he says, timbre of his voice staunched by a tentative peace.

Dean’s shaking when he’s shrouded in semi-black and it’s all he can do to scrub up, really take a look at his decay.

The stitches are long gone and he hates touching it, looks at the tremble of his hand until he presses down, palm-flat to connect to where knee becomes misshapen.

It’s a hump of skin over bone and he must make some kind of noise--or maybe he never stopped because the water shuts off and he’s plunged into light.

“You don’t have to look. You don’t need to look,” Sam says, auto-loop of his truth.

He’s trying to speak but that sound interrupts, ceaseless wail and it’s knocking his naked back against the tiles, wet all over and desecrated.

“You’re you,” Sam says, sounds desperate now and Dean finally lifts his head from his knee  _ (what knee, my god where did he go) _

And his body lists until Sam has to step forward to support him, tip of Dean’s shoulder bludgeoned to Sam’s chest.

“I--I’m already dying. They took me! They got me already but I gotta live like this until t--they come? Jesus. Jesus, I’d rather be dead. I wish they’d come now. I wish they’d come now.”

He spits it all out but it doesn’t sound as good as it does in his head because he’s crying around it and Sam’s eyes go black-dark.

“You gonna save me and then peace out?” Sam says quietly, and Dean shakes his head. No.

“I got you back, you’re whole and you’re strong and fucking. You’re fucking beautiful, alive, even, but I’m not anything like this,” he says, spills it all because he’s  _ dying,  _ real and true.

“You’re only worth my pound of flesh, huh?” Sam asks, but he doesn’t expect an answer and he drags Dean out of wet and he’s forced to spider-monkey his arms around his little brother’s wide neck.

He’s naked and damp, pressed to the front of his dressed brother and he shivers with the knowledge of it.

Sam’s arms come up under his ass, forearms to spread cheeks and he should find it in himself to feel horrified but he’s so damn exhausted.

Sam doesn’t let him go even when they’re standing next to his bed and Dean’s mouth drops open, lemme-down, lemme-down.

Sam does no such thing, removes one band of his arm to run browned fingers against the suddenly visible slant of Dean’s ribs.

“You don’t eat,” Sam states, matter-of-fact, and Dean laughs, low-exhale. “God. G-god,” he repeats, because he can. “I ain’t been hungry in so long.”

He’s carrying Dean with that one arm and it’s enough to make him lightheaded, well, that and the chill.

Sam digs his nails into the space Dean carved for him between his ribs and he’s confused when his dick starts to chafe, rub against Sam’s wool and buttons.

“H--huh,” he whimpers, trembles slightly and pulls backback.

“P-put me down. Put me  _ down, _ ” he says, and Sam shakes his head, smiles cornfield-charming and how did Dean not remember that it’s the monsters you know?

“Alright,” Sam acquiesces, “but I’m coming too,” he promises and he lies Dean flat on his back and pushes in between his one leg and his misfortune like he owns the area.

Sam puts one hand down, right above the swell of pain and Dean thrashes like an animal in an attempt to dislodge him.

“Get out. Sam--S-Sam I swear. I swear. Get the fuck.” Sam’s not looking at him, focused on the no-area of his limb and if he could see.

If he could see past the mist of his eyes.

Sam doesn’t bother with pretending to listen, leans low and presses four kisses to that grey-burgundy hunk of loss and Dean tries to scramble away but then Sam locks him in place with a forearm to abdomen and his muscles jump in fear.

The kisses spread from ruin to inner thigh and then tickle his hole and now Dean’s scared.

“Fuck. Sam!” he screams but Sam laughs (laughs) and presses the spit-kiss of his mouth to Dean’s taint.

It blossoms under air and the flick of Sam’s tongue and then he’s spearing him entirely, wastes no good time and Dean grabs at his right leg in an effort to keep it as numb and still as his bad one.

“P--please. Please, Sammy,” he begs, not sure what he’s asking for.

Sam looks up, releases him with a wet-slurp and his hair is tangled in his eyes.

“First time you asked me for anything,” he says, firm and unyielding and Dean knows he’s not gonna stop now that he’s started.

Sam knocks his legs open even wider and goes back down, hands pressed into slick thighs to keep Dean as broken open as he wants.

Eventually, even Dean’s limbs cooperate and he can just make out the hump of knee below Sam’s head.

His hole twitches, and he grinds his hips down into Sam’s face, smears his little brother with his own spit and blinks warily at the harsh line of his dick as it curves gently to the ceiling.

Sam comes up one final time and taps three fingers against the sensitivity of Dean’s hole and he shudders, full-body because he’s about to come.

“Y’like that?” Sam asks, like he already knows. “When I spank it?” Dean shakes his head no against the pillow but Sam laughs, unfettered.

“You do.” he says, and does it again, firmer this time so Dean has no chance of hiding his reaction.

His right leg curls up and his bad leg bounces and Sam hovers over it all.

“You’re still you,” he repeats from earlier, “and no part of you that’s missing is gonna stop me from wanting this.”

Dean’s wide-eyed, blind again, and he opens his mouth but Sam fills the space for him.

“I wanted to fuck you open then, and I’m gonna fuck you open now,” Sam continues, unbuttons his pants and Dean whines loud when his dick comes out, tufted by darker-than-his-own curls.

It lifts, blood-heavy and wanting, points straight to Sam’s face.

He can feel his gone-leg.

It’s so big it still looks large in Sam’s oversized palm and Dean’s hole is still spasming over the lack of attention.

“Everything. Everything about you big?” he manages, tries to smile but Sam’s not having it. “Big all over,” Sam replies. “Not an inch I’m not gonna make fit.”

Dean reassesses the situation, sees that his brother is packing ten to twelve and it should be obscene but he can  _ feel  _ for the first time.

He’s never gotten that phantom limb pain they talk about but in the here and now, it’s tangible and he hasn’t stopped crying since Sam dropped him on this bed.

He’s caught unawares when Sam spreads him with two thick fingers, wet with a squelch that says Sam had lube on his person.

“Y--you planned this?” He asks, and Sam shakes his head with another laugh. “Didn’t figure you’d let me,” he says, and leans closer when Dean gasps on a twist of his fingers.

“I was gonna make you, though. Make you take it,” he adds, and Dean stiffens as a third finger joins the first two and Sam must know he’s a glutton for pain, a Rabbi of it because he’s pulling those out almost as soon as he gets them in.

“Lemme in. Let it go and let me in,” Sam mutters, mostly to himself and on a whim Dean reaches behind himself to spread his ass and his hole for Sam’s consumption.

“Ah, fuck. Don’t you do that to me,” Sam breathes, and then he grips his cockhead and feeds it slowly, rubs the slick tip against fragile skin.

Dean’s air is trapped in his throat and he makes a wild-sound, white fingertips bracing the soft skin of his ass.

Sam’s wormed the crown inside and Dean sputters for his senses and comes all over his belly, thick tracks of it down his abdomen, splatters Sam’s shirt.

“I’m gonna kill you,” Sam says in wonderment, “only way you’re dying is right now, by me,” he continues, uses words the way Dean uses knives.

Dean’s still whimpering, hands dropped from his exposure and he’s trembling on the bed but Sam’s shoving the rest of the way in, white-hot poker in his backside and he’s so pliant it doesn’t sting, only carves out a home.

Sam seats himself balls deep and then reaches back to cup the Knee, looks Dean right in the eyes.

Mercifully, he doesn’t say another word, but one hand comes up to close around Dean’s throat and Sam fucks him like that, all earnest and suffocating and this time Dean doesn’t fight it when his world loses color and flutters at its precipice.

-

**Coda 3.0**

When they meat-hook him onto the rack

Both right and left are equal,

And reamed wide.


End file.
